Reminded me a little of the films my friend Shaun and I would make for our local church youth group (neither of us were religious or even really went to church, we just liked the free pizza and the organisers would let us screen our films there) - which were mostly evident as being what we wanted to make (silly movies with twists and turns, sudden burst of violence and many epic and cool needle drops) but would inevitably end…
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Aloha 2015
Galaxy-brain Pynchonesque screwball romance: the lost soldier's identity crisis, his personal affairs, physical ailments and sexual exploits set against the backdrop of a conspiratorial military industrial complex, shady billionaires, BIG rockets, musical asides...Danny McBride gets an erection 5 seconds before a military funeral; Bono, Tupac (in hologram form) and Ke$ha are all invoked at different points; Bradley Cooper perpetuates imperialist aggression and immediately engages in a scene of cross-cultural harmony. Before we see anything Crowe hits us with vintage studio…
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Living 2022
Handsome movie about a handsome dude, what can I say. "Remake" does not seem like the right word for this..."cover" seems more appropriate - I find this film's relationship to Ikiru one of its most interesting qualities, which might seem weird given how faithfully it adapts AK. It's been a long time since I saw Ikiru, so I could be wrong, but it feels like there are even a great number of shots/compositions here lifted straight from the original. I…
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Waves 1973
The ideal nature film in that the images become completely taken over by their subject, the camera in reverent servitude to the majesty of what appears in front of it. You can't capture such things, you can't tame them, you can only allow them to tell you their own story through rhythms, shapes and sounds beyond our comprehension, as you gaze in ecstatic wonder. Final shot of this is so wild I thought I was hallucinating.
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Monaco 2015
I can't claim to be the first in this great nation to obsess over the Bunnings Warehouse music, but I can tell you I was on that shit long before the YouTubers got hold of it. Since then a garden of musical homage has bloomed:
Bunnings Theme 10 Hours
Bunnings Warehouse Jingle Served 5 Ways, on the Guitar
Bunnings Theme Song - Rock Cover
Bunnings Warehouse - Synthesia Demo
Australia and New Zealand Hardware store “Bunnings” theme song
Bunnings Warehouse… -
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace 2004
The key is the framing device, which helps skirt the cheap shots of the "intentionally so-bad-it's-good" formula by allowing us to see Darkplace through Marenghi's eyes. Every flubbed line, every ridiculous plot point, every moment of shoddy craft, becomes a testament to the hubristic struggle to bring the horror masterwork to life. Not only is this show a work of comedic genius (that wasn't so much ahead of its time as a warning of pop culture's curdling relationship with camp and nostalgia), but it's a weirdly moving portrait of the artistic process, one that made me laugh, cry and shit myself all at the same time.
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Phantom of the Paradise 1974
Tasty, Winslow, tasty
Shoutout to the man in the Myer centre who sold me the soundtrack on vinyl for $10 the other week, the repeated bumping of which prompted this long-overdue rewatch!
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Mysterious Object at Noon 2000
Once upon a time...
Apichatpong's cinema is one of experiential motion - journeys of the soul through changing eras, landscapes, bodies and realities. Here we are offered the chance to explore and play and be carried along through an ever-shifting world of real and fantasy, and although this time we aren't granted the luxury of meditation to help us navigate this disorienting world, it's impossible to turn down such an open-hearted invitation from the most generous filmmaker to ever live.…